Fun for the first few hours

User Rating: 6.5 | Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise DS
The DS version of Viva Pinata is essentially a port of the original Xbox 360 game, albeit with lesser graphics (obviously). Everything has changed for the better, with the introduction of stylus based gameplay and no loading. Both of these things were annoying and began to grate on the 360 version.

The first few hours of play are simply wonderful and interesting. You won't be able to stop playing the game. But then, rather suddenly, you may come to the realisation that the gameplay is way less deep than it at first appeared. It isn't really that hard to attract lots of different kinds of pinatas to your garden. The game even helps you out a bit too much by telling you what you need to do to attract variant types to your garden e.g. by eating a particular kind of fruit or flower. This ruins the experience a little by taking away a lot of the experimentation.

The other problem is that you never really feel like you're building a functional garden. You simply plop down stuff wherever you like and the whole thing looks chaotic and messy. This was also a problem in the 360 version. Because you're limited to one garden only you'll frequently have to tear down large section of it to accommodate various pinatas.

Overall this is a good game with excellent stylus based gameplay. However, the game holds your hand a bit too much and you may eventually become bored of the easy level of play and the high level of repetition.